


I Used To Live Alone Before I Knew You

by Keira_63



Series: The Minor Fall, The Major Lift [1]
Category: BBC Sherlock, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Part of the Minor Fall Major Lift series, Pre-Series, Story titles taken from the song Halellujah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 07:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keira_63/pseuds/Keira_63
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly Hooper meets Sherlock Holmes in her second year of university, and in the seven years that follow she watches him fall to his drug addiction time and time again, pass out too many times to count and almost die. Yet she always remains, mopping up, crying and worrying, until she manages to put him back together enough for him to get the help he truly needs. Pre-Sherlolly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Used To Live Alone Before I Knew You

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part in a series spanning from pre-series until post series 3. It was inspired by lyrics from the song Hallelujah - the series title and each story title is a line, or part of a line, from the song. This part is pre-series.  
> No beta so sorry for any mistakes.

Molly hated seeing Sherlock when he was high. It made her feel sad and helpless and scared and angry all at the same time.

Sad. It hurt her to see him like that, pupils dilated, talking even faster than he usually did and an unkemptness that bothered her immensely, considering how put-together his appearance normally was.  
She had cried so many times, upset that he felt he needed the drugs to get just a few moments of peace, to get his brain to slow down enough to just rest.  
His intellect and deductive capabilities were, to Sherlock, his greatest achievement, and it hurt her to see him suppress that (and with such a dangerous substance as drugs).

Helpless. She was studying the dead, working on corpses, not real, breathing bodies. It was what she’d always wanted - she had an interest in the stories the dead told, and she had never wanted to be a doctor working on the living. Despite this, when she saw Sherlock high, and especially on the occasions when he lost consciousness (or worse), she wished she knew more.  
She was much better than the non-medical population, but not good enough when it came to helping Sherlock when he was too far gone. All she could ever do in those situations was stabilise him as best as she could and call an ambulance.  
It made her feel useless - what point was there to all her training and her degree if she couldn’t help her best friend (and Sherlock was her best friend) when he needed it.  
She felt helpless too, that she couldn’t stop his involvement with drugs. She tried, but she could never quite bring herself to be strong or forceful enough. That was one of her weaknesses, and sometimes she hated herself for it.

Angry. The drugs made her furious with him, indignant that he'd ruin himself in such a way.  
They were both intelligent enough, and had seen enough, to know the dangers of drugs, but Sherlock didn't seem to care at all. She felt like hitting him so many times, especially since the drugs made him crueller in his words towards her.  
She never slapped him though, despite the numerous daydreams she entertained about doing just that. Molly got angry, but she was also good at controlling that anger - a good trait when one knew someone like Sherlock Holmes (although a good slap would probably have done him some good).

Scared. Sherlock never usually scared Molly. He made her sad, annoyed and worried, but never scared ... not unless he was very high.  
The drugs changed him, blurred the lines of acceptable behaviour even more for him. He loomed over her, shouted and ranted, sometimes gripped her wrist or arm a little too tight (she always tried to hide that from him later).  
Sometimes it felt like she was in an abusive relationship, but she couldn't give up on Sherlock. He only ever behaved in such a way when he was high, and the truth was he didn't seem to have anyone else, apart from his brother Mycroft (and to say that relationship was strained was an understatement).

The drugs ruined him, and it broke her heart. Even through his worst, though, when she just wanted to run away and forget him (as if that could ever happen), she stayed.  
She stayed because, despite everything, she loved him.  
No one could say that he was really taking advantage of her, because she wanted to be around him, and in his drug-addled state all he could often think about was his next fix, not how to get her to stay and use it to his advantage.  
It was stupid, and it would possibly (probably) get her into trouble some day. But she knew the world needed Sherlock Holmes, and she was determined that while he might continue to fall due to his addiction, eventually she might manage to catch him.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Molly Hooper met Sherlock Holmes when she was a second year at university.  
He deduced almost everything about her during their first, chance meeting in the one of the university labs.  
He had, she learnt, completed a chemistry degree of some sort at the same time she had finished her first year. He was now supposedly doing a Masters, but she never seemed to see an evidence of that. Instead, he tended to spend most of his time doing experiments in the labs.  
That was how they met. He needed an extra pair of hands, deduced she was competent and asked (or rather demanded) she help.  
It became a pattern, even if he did complain that her studies meant she wasn't free to help him often enough.  
"I have to do well, Sherlock," she reminded him constantly, "this is my dream."  
He continued to complain, but it lacked any real malice, so she guessed that he understood.

Molly had scarcely noticed the beginnings of her crush on Sherlock. It just sort of happened, bit by bit, until one day she realised how much she cared about the genius sociopath. The crush turned to love over time, even when Sherlock treated her like rubbish, even through the drugs.  
Molly was incredibly loyal (a friend told her once she’d make an excellent Hufflepuff) and Sherlock was her first real friend. She had never been particularly lonely, but few wanted to be close friends with a girl who had such a fascination with the dead, while Sherlock seemed to partly like her because of it.  
Sherlock seemed fairly oblivious - thankful really, since he would no doubt have mocked her for such sentiment.  
She dated occasionally, refusing to let her feelings for Sherlock, which were likely to go nowhere, get in the way of potential happiness. She might as well have not bothered. Her dates could never quite compare to Sherlock, and when she went out with someone, there was about a fifty per cent chance that the date would end up crashed by Sherlock, wanting her assistance or just being annoying.  
He told her he was just saving her the time she would have spent finding out how wrong her dates were for her. Then he proceeded to give her a long list of their flaws - eventually she got so frustrated that she stopped dating for the most part, and Sherlock looked triumphant for weeks.  
She hoped it might mean he was jealous and didn’t know how to deal with it, that he might actually return her feelings one day. She doubted it though. Mostly, she ended up consumed with trying to keep him alive and healthy.  
It wasn’t how she pictured her life, but she couldn’t let Sherlock go - she loved him too much.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Molly’s meetings with Sherlock were sporadic. One week she might see him every day, then he could vanish for a month before reappearing as if he'd never left.  
It took her an embarrassingly long time to work out about the drugs. She was just so pleased to have a friend like him (despite his personality flaws) that she didn't want to see his deteriorating appearance, continuing (and lengthening) disappearances and occasional erratic behaviour.  
She did try, for a while, to get him to stop. Pamphlets and books were useless in appealing to him, so she only tried to speak with him, to recommend good rehab programmes.  
It didn't work and he only got worse.

He disappeared two years after she met him. She had so desperately wanted to save him. All she could take comfort in was the one text she received from an unknown number.  
He's alive - MH  
Those two words from Mycroft were all that really kept her worry to reasonable levels over the next year.

Then, as suddenly as he had gone, he was back again.  
Unfortunately, so were the drugs, and it couldn't be denied - he was addicted.  
She kept trying to get him to stop. She tried too many methods to count. They all failed.  
She tried again.

It continued like that for a few years.  
There were some scares, but Sherlock, while pushed into visiting A&E occasionally, never actually needed to be hospitalised (in his opinion, if she had her way it would have been a different matter entirely).  
There was one memorable attempt of Mycroft's to force his wayward younger brother into rehab. Sherlock lasted seven hours before he escaped the facility.  
Mycroft washed his hands of it all after that, though she did sometimes catch sight of a person who didn't belong watching her when Sherlock was present - so Mycroft still kept an eye on the situation.

It wasn't all stress and drugs and disaster. Sherlock wasn't high all (although after a while it was certainly most) of the time.  
When there were no drugs he was almost like his old self, and they'd do experiments and solve cold cases Sherlock managed to find. It was fun, though she learnt never to mention the drugs during those periods, or any positive atmosphere would soon evaporate.  
Still, the drugs escalated, and those happy moments became rarer.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything changed one day, seven years after Molly had first met Sherlock.  
That day, Molly saved Sherlock's life for the first (and, she would later realise, not last) time.

Molly rarely went to Sherlock's flat. They met mostly in the labs or various locations around London, even occasionally at her flat. His flat had been in a nice area, and relatively sanitary (he had a cleaning service) to begin, but when he dropped the charade of doing a Masters and left the university for good, he moved to an area that could only be called dodgy. At the time, she had no idea why, since he had money. It was only later that she realised it put him in closer proximity to drugs.  
She didn't like to go to that flat because it was so blatantly the home of an addict, with needles and other drug paraphernalia scattered around. She was worried enough as it was, and didn't need further visual proof.  
Sherlock had called earlier, though, to ask her to meet him at a fish and chip shop close to the university. He hadn't really explained way, only muttered that it was for a case and then hung up. When he didn't show she'd waited around for an hour. Then she started to get worried.  
She told herself he'd just forgotten, or that he'd become sidetracked by another case or experiment. Yet, he had mentioned this case was a 9 on his scale, and that wasn't the sort of thing he'd easily choose to miss. She thought she'd check his flat, just in case.  
She thanked whatever higher power there was every day that she'd decided to go to his flat.

She had a spare key, which he'd given her only so he didn't have to be interrupted in order to open the door. She entered the flat and tried not to gag at the smell and the mess.  
All thoughts about the state of the flat left her head when she spotted Sherlock sprawled on the floor, even paler than normal and with needle tracks visible up both of his arms (she didn't want to imagine what he might look like elsewhere).  
He was, she discovered as she dropped down next to him and put her fingers to his neck, almost lacking a pulse. It was faint, fainter than it had ever been during Sherlock's many losses of consciousness. She had a horrible feeling his heart could stop at any moment.  
She puller her mobile out and dialled 999, relieved that she found herself able to speak quite clearly to the operator, describing Sherlock's symptoms, his history of drug abuse, how he looked and his failing pulse. They told her they'd send an ambulance immediately, that it should be no more than five or ten minutes.  
Unfortunately, she wasn't sure Sherlock's heart could hold out that long without medical equipment.

She needed, she thought, to try and get his heart pumping a bit more, to stave off the continuing slowing of his heart, at least until the paramedics arrived.  
She did her best. She tried every possible method she could think of to get his pulse a little more lively. She swore at him more in those seven minutes than she ever had before in all the time they'd known each other. She may have also slapped him on the cheek once or twice, to try and rouse him and also to vent a little of her frustration.  
He never made a sound, never spoke a word, never opened his eyes.  
She'd get his pulse up a little, only for it to slow down almost immediately. It became a cycle, but with each time his pulse seemed to drop even faster.  
Just as the ambulance was pulling up, his heart stopped completely.  
She continued to try and bring it back until the paramedics arrived to take him down to the ambulance. They let her ride with them and she watched, relieved, as they managed to restart his heart less than three minutes after it had stopped.  
She managed to make it to the hospital without bursting into tears. Sherlock, she thought, would have been proud of her.

Mycroft called her while she was in the waiting room. He told her he was sending some security to ensure that Sherlock didn't escape from hospital before he was fully healed. She wondered why he didn't come immediately himself, since Sherlock was his only brother, but then she thought it was probably for the best, considering how poorly they got on.  
Sherlock was in surgery for hours, but when the doctor came to speak with her, he assured her that Sherlock would, with some rest, be fine. She couldn't help it then - she started crying.  
They let her in to see him a little later on, but he was still unconscious. It hurt to see him, so pale, with bruises on his arms and hooked up to machines. She had planned to go home, but she didn't want to leave him and she had no plans for the next day. Instead, she settled into the chair beside his bed and went to sleep.  
No one tried to throw her out - Mycroft's influence was obviously good for something - and she slept for ten hours.  
When she woke, Sherlock was looking at her with more emotion than she'd ever seen before from him.

She felt her heart leap at seeing him awake, but it was soon overshadowed by anger at how much danger he'd put himself in.  
"You died," she stated coldly, "for three minutes - you bloody died Sherlock!"  
"I ... apologise Molly," he replied, looking shamefaced, "I did not mean for it to get that far."  
"I just can't believe you," she hissed, "I've been warning you for years. I'm surprised this hasn't happened before. You have to stop this Sherlock."  
"Yes, I know," he said, and when she opened her mouth to rant once more about how he needed to get to rehab, she realised what he had actually said and stopped.  
"You're going to get clean?" she asked, daring to hope.  
"I'm going once they let me out of here," he explained, "Mycroft's found a place and I've promised not to escape again."  
She leant back, shocked by his sudden change of heart, "when was this arranged?"  
"I woke up a few hours ago, while you were still asleep. Mycroft came in and we sorted things out then."  
"You didn't even stir," he said reproachfully, "you really are an appallingly deep sleeper Molly, a rather dangerous habit to have if you ask me."  
"Oh shut up," she told him, though she couldn't help but smile - he was finally going to try and stick it out at rehab.  
"They told me I would have died."  
Sherlock was solemn, his eyes more serious than usual, "if you hadn't come at all, or if you'd arrived later, I would have died. If you hadn't tried to get my heart beating more then I might have died, or at least suffered some brain damage. You saved my life, Molly Hooper."  
She blushed, "I'm glad, the world needs Sherlock Homes."  
"I won't forget it," he told her, almost earnestly, "Molly Hooper, the woman who saved Sherlock Holmes."  
She smiled. Sherlock was finally safe.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He went to rehab a few days later.  
She tried not to be emotional when she said goodbye, knowing how much it would annoy him. It was hard, though, because she wouldn't be able to contact him while he was away. It was for the best, she knew, but that didn't mean she liked it.  
He was away for a year and a half. She continued with her pathology training and tried not to worry about how things were going for him.  
She got a text from Mycroft letting her know when he was released.  
She didn’t hear from him for a while, and she knew he was probably getting back on his feet, learning about London and any changes that had come about (he prided himself on his superior knowledge of the city). She wasn’t worried, knowing Mycroft would have contacted her if something had gone very wrong.  
Six months after Sherlock left rehab, she received a text from Mycroft.  
He’s coming - MH  
She grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> Hopefully the next part, which includes parts of pre-series and then encompasses from series 1 episode 2 - series 2 episode 3, will be up fairly soon.  
> See the notes on the series page for the titles of the upcoming stories in this series.  
> Thanks for reading.


End file.
